


White

by Harmonica_Smile (Rescue_Remedy), m_rosenkov



Series: Law's Hybrid Collections [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Complete, Dreams and Nightmares, Friendship, Going Luffy Senpai, Hats, Light Angst, Luffy's nightmares, M/M, Post-Dressrosa, Support, Vivre Card
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 14:50:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15536628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rescue_Remedy/pseuds/Harmonica_Smile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_rosenkov/pseuds/m_rosenkov
Summary: White is the colour of slates and the earth wiped clean. Possibilities. Good and bad.





	White

* * *

**White**

* * *

 

"Nightmares are just images, Mugiwara-ya," he says flatly, "No matter how real they feel."

Luffy peers curiously from underneath the brim of his hat. "You have nightmares too?"

"No."

"Cos you never sleep?"

Law's lips quirk. "I don't sleep because I lack the chemical in my brain that allows me to do so." He tilts his head, frowning. "Have you been watching me, Mugiwara-ya?"

"Of course!" Luffy laughs, then scoots on his ass across the railing, all up in Law's space, teetering over the edge. Law controls himself, and doesn't push him into the waves below.

"You're nakama."

"Stop calling me that."

Luffy answers with a grin — one that cuts Law in half. The moonlight casts long shadows over Strawhat's face, and Law is transfixed by the scars and bruises decorating what he can see of his skin. Foolish, brash, idiotic decisions.

Law sighs, tears his eyes away to stare at the dark line of the horizon, an absorption of night sky and sea. "We should sleep." He doesn't move.

Luffy pauses, yawns. "Thanks, Torao," voice suddenly heavy with fatigue. He leans a little too far forward and Law reaches out, fisting the back of his vest and holding him. Luffy falls back heavily into Law's grip, and yawns again, eyes drooping. He feels heaps better.

 

*******

 

The next night Law exits the room Bartolomeo — at Robin's bidding — set up for him to tend the aches, pains, wounds and injuries of Dressrosa. It's late.

"Torao!"

Luffy's there, as if waiting for him, arms slung around the neck of the figurehead sculpted into the Strawhat's likeness. The door clicks behind. The combined crews enjoy the way the stars rope across the sky, and the few slumbering on the deck stir at the shout.

"This is becoming a regular occurrence, Mugiwara-ya." Law, not quite vexed, steps up to him, rests his nodachi against the railing.

Luffy swings around the carving, and Law's heart accelerates, like it did yesterday, as the only thing that stops the fool from dropping into the water is his rubbery hold — Luffy clasping wooden-Luffy's neck. But he loops a foot, a leg, from an impossible angle, and pulls himself up so that he's facing the Heart captain. Law rests against the railing, his fingers curling around Kikoku for a second, as Luffy lays back, eyes to the sky, an easy grin.

"I had bad dreams again," he says.

"You weren't awake this often before Dressrosa."

"I like the Sunny."

Homesickness? He can understand that. Missing the familiar? His nakama? Is that all?

Luffy pushes himself up into a lazy slouch, stretches and places a hand out to the bandages wrapped around Law's arm. He seems more than a little interested in them. Law looks down at the touch. Almost pulls away.

"I think Kikoku was heavier than your arm when I threw both down to Robin."

Law's glad he missed seeing that, and is amazed Luffy had the presence of mind to gather his accessories, so to speak, and his very combustible body, out of Trebol's flames.

"I think she weighed more than you when you were whole, too," Luffy smiles, sits back cross-legged against the figurehead.

Law grimaces, flexes a forearm as if preparing to draw blood. Muscle carries weight. Whatever. He's alive.

Being carted around Dressrosa like Luffy's gunnysack is high on his list of lifetime humiliations. Having his arm severed hurt. Being encased in snot was uncomfortable, and Fujitora's gravity was inconvenient. But that memory alone makes him want to burrow deep underground, never to resurface.

Apparently Law's bounty poster looks pretty cool, not that he cares, but all that the marines have to do is post any one of the possible transponder images of him helpless, cuffed, thrown over Luffy's shoulder. Dangling from that flagpole—

He buttresses his chin with a frustrated swipe or two before dropping his palm to his side. His reputation would be in tatters. No point dwelling on it. Survival hardly ever spits up the pretty options.

"Ace died by fire."

Law takes in the borrowed calm of the ocean, the air is thick around them. "Lived and died," he says.

Luffy nods. "He stepped in front of a punch Akainu meant for me and it scorched his heart clean out. Like how you pull out people's hearts, except they keep beating? Propelled it from him, left a neat square hole that couldn't be filled by anything."

Mugiwara's burns were severe when he was thrown to the Polar Tang. Along with all the other damage. His voice now is almost filled with wonder.

It's night but the younger captain feels for the drawstring around his neck and pulls his hat onto his head. Shanks' hat. "Your bear gave you his vivre card?"

Law tips the bill of his own cap up. Headwear, at this stage of the evening. "Bepo. Yeah. I tore some off for Nami-ya."

"Gave it to my nakama to see your nakama?"

"I guess."

Luffy scratches at his scar. "Ace had a vivre card. Gave it to me on Alabasta. That magma freak punched his life force outta him, but Ace had a few moments, on his knees, blood dripping from his mouth."

Luffy runs his thumb along his own lower lip.

"His vivre card inched across my hand across the ground toward him, burning up like Ace was burning up like everything around us burning up, like that snot guy forcing that stick down your throat and even though you got him good—"

He's been speaking to the sky, but turns to Law now. "Kikoku, she's a beauty though, isn't she?—"

For a second Luffy's eyes spark in the moonlight and drive blackness of loss from them. The tarnished blackness from Kikoku. Tarnished from intent, not neglect.

"She has her moments."

Law has to admit, Sterben blade is pretty badass. Maybe one day he  _could_  do something as cool as Franky's radical beam. In the meantime, he's not sure what weight to give the story Luffy is pulling together, one meandering word to the next.

"You know, even though you got snot guy good, he set everything on fire. You on fire, Law."

Luffy's voice is low like a boat moored against rising seas.

"He didn't succeed."

"I fought Bellamy and Doflamingo shot you."

"Didn't succeed." Law's nail scrapes his jawline, an afterthought.

"Fought a whole colosseum and Doflamingo shot you."

Law just looks at him.

Luffy closes and opens his hand, following the lines Ace's card crossed. He turns to Law, focusing on the crisp white, neatly applied dressings. Law's too efficient to let one bit of cloth fray. They're not going anywhere.

"Didn't succeed, huh?" Luffy says, voice unsteady.

Law shakes his head, lightly touches the hat he risked his crew's lives to collect. "You can't save everyone, Luffy. Not everyone needs saving." Not everyone who needed saving got saved.

Luffy pauses, fists his hand again. He twists and faces the ocean, the path Bepo's card guides them along.

"Nakama," he says into the neck of the figurehead.

Law doesn't fight it.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Thank you for reading**. HS here. May was offering [this fic scrap](http://mrosenkov.tumblr.com/post/175090238999/lawlu-fic-scrap-that-is-unfortunately-going) up at their blog. The premise being a reversal of the trope that Law is afflicted with nightmares and Luffy comforts (May's words). Anyone who's read my stories know I write them both suffering from nightmares and helping the other out, but I liked this idea too.
> 
> A lot of the above is May's. If you go to the blog, you can see clearly. Even so, I hope it worked well together, and we did correspond about posting, and lots of thanks for the idea and the generosity with their ideas.
> 
>  **Oh!** I don't know if Luffy would ever know the name of Law's nodachi. He'd probably just call it that sword-thingy. That pointy object. But I wrote it so he knew to add a bit of depth to the knowledge that must exist by now between these two. Also, I don't think it's possible to talk into the neck of that figurehead — it's pretty tall — but just suspend your disbelief for a second or two.


End file.
